Another week, another set of bitches. Not really, it’s really the same set of bitches over and over again, but the commentary is fresh, so no need to ring for Carson.

Rapist: He always did seem clumsy, right? Right.

Rose: Ugh, Rose. You don’t deserve that kind man.

Dowager: A good week’s work for her snark. I’d totally watch a spinoff in which she and Isobel go on a world cruise.

Thomas: Didn’t you learn any manners in America? Muhahaha, I come to ask about the gossip, muhahaha. Just have him grow him a handlebar mustache if you’re going to have him metaphorically twirling the thing all the time anyway. Even Mosley got in a good dig with his whole “you know none of us like that dick, right?” Look, here’s what needs to happen with Thomas: his sole redeeming quality is his affection for Sybil. Make him Tom’s valet, and have him bend all his manipulative striving into making Tom the next Prime Minister. Or have Bates take him on a long walk to York, one of the two.

Married dude: Yeah right, he’s not dead. He totally staged his own disappearance so that he can reemerge as a Nazi two years later. Newspaperman? He’s Goebbels. Called it. Even looks kind of like him.

Alfred: Oh grow up already. He comes back home more than a freshman whose parents live in the same city. I’m surprised he didn’t drop a pile of laundry in Anna’s lap and ask to borrow the car.

Mama Grantham: Cocks head to side, dead-eyed gaze, sliding along with shoulders pitched forward like a skeleton being dragged forward on a caster wheeled rack. Her mouth hangs open to add some rictus to the rigor. And then the droning voice issues forth, the screaming of the lobotomized damned spouting forth such inane cluelessness as to drown out all doubt of your impression of her intellect. Honestly, I’m surprised that her genes and the Earl’s had enough vigor to them to combine into even one child that was intelligent enough to learn how to walk. Oh I suppose I had specific complaints about her complete inability to understand anything going on around her, but I think the general description about covers it.

James: Seriously, did the actor kick Julian Fellowes’ dog? I mean first they marinated him in douche sauce, and now they have him getting showed up by Mosley? Mosley once had a panic attack when a spoon shined too aggressively at him, so you know you’re at the bottom when Mosley drops a “it’s all in the wrist, bitch” and walks off with an impressed woman on his arm.

School Teacher Trollop: Ugh. Why hello, I have preconceived notions about the entire Grantham family, and know that your wife died, that she had a daughter, and that the nobility are lazy assholes, but I managed to never hear that you were the chauffeur. You know, the single thing you would have heard of if you’d heard any part of the story? I don’t know why the family is so worried about scandal, if the local village gossip doesn’t even hear about the publicly announced ones.

Earl Grantham: I’m just amazed that his testimony didn’t manage to get whatever throwaway relative that was the death penalty.

Finally, can we just agree that Bates is Batman? Because he might not be the hero Downton deserves, but I’m pretty sure he’s the hero Downton needs. Samuel L. Jackson is probably a Bates fan.

Steven Lloyd Wilson is the sci-fi and history editor. You can email him here or follow him on Twitter.